BENGALURU: Founders of restaurant aggregator Zomato and taxi app Ola have mocked Housing's Rahul Yadav for suggesting they follow his lead and give away stock to employees, and in much of the startup community too he found little support for a dare seen as grandstanding by a man prone to fits of unconventional behaviour.

"Give that man a cookie," wrote Ola's Bhavish Aggarwal in a Facebook post in response to the Housing CEO's exhortation on Friday on the site that he and Zomato cofounder Deepinder Goyal should relinquish half their shareholding in favour of employees.

In recent weeks, Yadav, 26, has had several clashes on social media, and even taunted his board in a resignation letter he later withdrew. His dare follows announcement on Wednesday that he was giving away shares he claimed were worth Rs 150-200 crore.

Even the investors in his real estate portal were apparently none too pleased. A representative for one of them told ETthe board will not allow him to hand his shares to staff and claimed the value was only Rs 70 crore. "I don't understand why he is making such promises," this person fretted.

Housing came to be regarded as one of the hottest startups in India after it snagged funding of $90 million in a round led by Japan's SoftBank, which has also backed Ola and online marketplace Snapdeal. Documents seen by ET show Yadav, an IIT-Bombay student who founded it with collegemates, owns a 4.57% stake in a company valued at Rs 1,500 crore during its last round of funding in December. "Aww, so cute," wrote Zomato's Goyal. "Arvind Kejriwal must be SO elated to have found a companion/comrade in tech startups," he added later in the day, referring to Delhi's chief minister.

Sumit Jain, cofounder of Common-Floor, which competes with Housing, said entrepreneurs feeling the urge to hand share to employee stock-option pool should do it when they are planning to retire. "Somebody being just 26, it's too early in life to retire," he said.

The representative of SoftBank, the largest shareholder in Housing, is the de facto head of the company after the board decided to set up a committee to oversee all important decisions. This happened after Yadav's resignation as CEO and board member was rejected.

Sharad Sharma, cofounder and CEO of software product thinktank, iSpirt, said while employees deserve equity, taking it away from founders who earn it does not appear to a very good plan. "In this situation, all stakeholders, including investors, pay for these employee equity grants. Although some people might buy this idea that only founders have to contribute to employee equity pool because of Rahul's celebrity status, it doesn't mean it is a good idea."

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